Category Archives: advocacy

Tonight Facebook was astir with the news that President Trump’s Thursday night rally is being moved from the South Bend Airport to the Elkhart North Side Gym. (This image is from the Goshen News article with details about how you can get tickets is here.)

Now, normally I don’t post about politics. The truth is, I haven’t completely recovered from the Obama years; for the last four presidential elections my husband and I have made a pact not to cast a vote for either presidential nominee, since we would cancel each other out. (We would vote for the other offices.) This past election was no exception.

But I have to say, I am getting really tired of people hinting (or saying outright) that only vapid airhead with no moral compass could possibly have voted for _________. As if there isn’t room for prudential judgment on both sides here.

I’ll tell you another secret: I’ve decided that who sits in the White House doesn’t concern me nearly as much as who runs our schools and social and community services. Because these are people whose decisions impact the lives of my family every day.

Furthermore, if you don’t like who is sitting in the White House, there comes a point when whining about it on Facebook is worse than useless. If you want to make a change, DO something.

Plant a tree.

Volunteer at a food bank, pregnancy crisis center, or animal shelter.

Run for city counsel or other public office. (Or help someone who is.)

Join your kid’s PTO and volunteer at their next Teacher Appreciation Day.

If you want to make a difference, roll up your sleeves and give it a little elbow grease. You’ll feel better about the state of our world in no time, I promise.

And please, PLEASE do not fill up the com box with diatribes about our President (yes, if you are an American he IS our president.) Just join me in praying for the man and those in other positions of authority and responsibility. Because he needs all the prayers he can get — and he would be the first to admit it.

Lord, we bring these upcoming elections to you. The airwaves are full of promises, and only you know the hearts of these candidates. To quote St. Joan, “Lord, if they are not in your grace, please put them there; if they are, please keep them there.” Give us courage and wisdom in the ballot box, and strength to make a difference where we are planted. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

This week on CatholicMom.com, my column deals with the signs parents should watch for in their children that may indicate they are experiencing trauma and need professional help. The source of the trauma varies from child to child and from family to family: divorce, death, separation, neglect, abuse, financial stress, the list goes on. For children touched by adoption or foster care, unresolved trauma from the circumstances that caused them to be separated from their birth families can affect them into adulthood, even if they are loved and supported by their new families. Love, in and of itself, does not always “conquer all.”

What I wish someone had thought to mention to us when we first got our children, is that unresolved trauma can lie dormant for a time — only to bite you in the glutes as the child approaches adolescence. So parents need to keep a watchful eye, especially in children who have been diagnosed with “invisible disabilities” such as autistic spectrum disorders, ADHD, ODD, attachment issues, and so on. And parents of children with a history of abuse and neglect must never let their guard down entirely. Sneakiness and deceit — even with children who are otherwise good and truthful — is part of the disorder.

Another thing I wish had been pointed out to me is that trauma affects parents, too. After years of dealing with acting-out behaviors, your parent brain may not catch the more subtle signs of “something is not right here.” Not only do your kids need help in healing . . . You may also need help in dealing with the stress.

This week’s Gospel, in which Jesus gives dire warnings to those who cause one of his “little ones” to stumble, predicting millstones and a watery destruction, also provide a faint hint of hope to those who hear with the ears of faith. For the Christian, “death by water” has an entirely different connotation than it does for those who have not experienced the “dying with Christ” and “rising to new life” that baptism represents. Through our baptism, we do have all the graces we need to complete the journey. The path is not without suffering, for we follow in the steps of the Savior who suffered and died for us. But as we travel the road together with our children, we can persevere in faith, trusting in the perfect healing that is to come.

A wise man once said, “The greatness of any civilization is measured by the treatment of its weakest members.” America has always been a great nation. We enjoy unrivaled personal and civil liberties. And yet, we are now a nation in undeniable decline. How did we get here?

To put it simply, we have forgotten ourselves, where we came from and where we’re going.

* We have abandoned spiritual principles that brought us greatness, turning “freedom of religion” into “freedom from religion,” poisoning decency and sacrificing the common good in the name of “tolerance” and “individualism.”

* We have robbed our children of their right to take their place as vital members of society, having abandoned and neglected them on one hand, and and overindulged and under-disciplined them on the other.

* We have wasted ournatural abundance and vast resources, allowing those less fortunate — both around the world and in our own backyard — to die of poverty.

* Above all, we have sacrificed millions of young lives — both born and not-yet born — in the name of freedom.

Today my friend Sarah posted this YouTube video that is a must-see for any woman — especially any African American woman — who has ever considered abortion. It is profoundly ironic how the abortion industry has waged “Black Genocide,” legally, by swathing itself in red-white-and-blue bunting and calling it a “choice” rather than a “child.”

Five hundred thousand children across our nation are being herded together into group homes, or are kept in permanent “limbo” without a family to call their own. (Here is information about how to become a foster or adoptive parent.)

Four hundred thousand children are in a state of embryonic suspended animation, abandoned by the very people who were willing to go to any lengths to have a child — even if that meant sacrificing their own flesh-and-blood. (If you would like to rescue one of these little ones, click here for more information on the “Snowflakes” program.)

In the first four centuries of Christianity — when the Catholic faith was considered a dangerous Jewish sect, and our leaders were routinely rounded up and executed by the Roman State — history records that thousands of Roman citizens nevertheless converted because of the witness of the lives of these ordinary Christians. In particular, they were admired for tending to those in prisons and hospitals … and because of their efforts to rescue and raise as their own countless abandoned Roman infants (infanticide was legal in the Roman Empire up to eight days of age).

There is a lesson for us here … The question is, how will you respond?